President Mahmoud Abbas to meet Egypt's Mursi

President Mahmoud Abbas is set to meet with newly elected Egyptian president Muhammad Mursi on July 18, Palestinian sources told Ma'an on Friday. The meeting is expected to discuss basic diplomatic protocols, such as coordination between Egypt and the Palestinians, while leaving more complicated issues such Palestinian reconciliation to a later date. Abbas will also congratulate Mursi on his recent election victory. The meeting is set to take place after Abbas returns from an international tour, which will see the president visit Saudi Arabia. On Friday, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said that he was confident Egypt's new president would shield the coastal enclave from Israeli attack and fully open its borders to end a trade blockade. Although Muhammad Mursi is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and ideologically close to Hamas, there has been little sign of a policy shift since he took office. Diplomats said that the Egyptian leader has so many domestic problems that he could ill-afford to dedicate much time to re-tooling Cairo's relations with the Palestinians. Both President Abbas and Hamas are likely to be pressed by Egypt to end their long-standing hostilities, which at one point saw the two sides fight a brief civil war in Gaza. "No one can help the Palestinians more than they can help themselves. They should take daring steps to end their rifts," an official in Cairo told Reuters by phone. Theoretically, Mursi's election gave a boost to Hamas, but the man has a million domestic problems to handle at home," a diplomat in the region told Reuters, asking not to be named. "If Mursi publicly backs Hamas, he would be seen as supporting the Palestinian division and that would reflect badly on his foreign policy. He has to tread it carefully," he added.